Trollquest
Trollquest is a massively multiplayer online game by Skaia Neotech. It takes place within Alternia, an alien planet. The game was announced at VR Con 2014 and was eventually released on May 12, 2015. Initially developed by Skaia Neotech, it was quickly handed to the newly created branch SN Entertainment. Lore In Trollquest, there doesn't seem to be any backstory, and nothing is known about the planet besides what is written in the user manual: : "You will play as a Troll; they are the dominant species of their main planet: Alternia. Truth be said, they are also the dominant species on any planet their colossal army went. Rumors say their empire goes as far as their universe's limit." There is nothing about their physical appearance, so the only information available is from the character creation process. Nonetheless, here are the most common observations that have been made from it : They are humanoids, presumably the same height as humans. They have grey skin and orange horns. The shape of the latter can be very varied. It can go from little and nubby to massive, swirly, ram-like horns. Their eyes are orange with gray irises and they have black hair. An interesting option, when creating a character, is the blood color. There are 12 colors available, ranging from "rust red" to "tyrannian fuchsia". Although, the last two colors, "seadweller violet" and "tyrannian fuchsia", are only available through the premium content store. * Rust red * Bronze brown * Mustard yellow * Rare lime * Olive green * Beta jade (Beta-players only) * Turquoise teal * Cobalt cerulean * Strong indigo * High purple * Seadweller violet (Premium) * Tyrannian fuchsia (Premium, limited edition, only 1 available) It is unclear what are the effects of most color, besides one fact: trolls seem to write with the same color as their blood. There is nothing too special about the two last colors, though. Being a Troll with one of those color in your veins makes you a "seadweller". Seadwellers Trolls appear to have gills on their cheeks, meaning that they probably can breathe underwater. Another clue is the fact that you can choose an underwater scenery for your hive's neighbourhood. Gameplay As with some other MMOGs, players control a character avatar within a game world in first-person view. Also similar to a few other MMOGs, Trollquest doesn't require the player to pay for a subscription; the only mandatory fee is the price of the game itself. To enter the game, the player must use the VR equipment provided with the game. Development *15/08/2014: ver0.0.1, first concept design. *1/06: ver0.0.9, final concept design. *1/09/2015: ver0.1, license is handed down to SNE. *1/28: ver0.5, closed beta released. *3/02: ver0.8, open beta released. *5/12: ver1.0, game publicly released. *5/13: ver1.1, fixed bugs. *5/15: ver1.5, added features. *5/20: ver1.6, fixed features bugs. *5/21: ver1.7, fixed bugs from fixing features bugs. *... *6/01: ver2.0, preparation for an upcoming secret feature. *6/04: ver2.1, viewport feature added. *... *6/24: ver3.33: Holopopup devkit released. *... *8/16: ver8.0, Cavedesign released. *... *10/24: ver10.24, S8RB Update released. Trollquest Beta On January 28th 2015, SNE released a closed beta for the game; only 10 000 players were selected to participate. The game was considered heavily broken, but not as much as one would have expected from a closed beta. In the first version, there was no interaction possible with in-game elements, as it was primarily to test the compatibility with most systems. On March 6th, the open beta was released, although with a still limited access. 100 000 players were accepted, on a first-come first-served basis. By then, the elements in the game were interactive, although still sometimes broken. Minigames In Trollquest, the player's computer is replaced by it's Troll equivalent called a Grubtop. On grubtops, players can access a variety of in-game tools, as well as play in-game games called Minigames, or Minis. Those are games specifically designed to be only played in Trollquest, allowing the players to basically play a videogame in a videogame. The first Mini was Cavedesign. Trivia In the premium pack containing the two last colors, the description refers to a caste: "The two higher ranks of Troll caste". It is speculated that Trolls have a caste based on blood colors.